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This week in Congress: Cantor wants education

Cantor (R-Va.) and his aides told a closed Republican leadership meeting on at least two separate occasions this week that he wants the 520-page bill on the House floor as early as next week, setting off some concern in those circles that the leader was readying to drop a bill that the conference wasn’t yet prepared for.

GOP leadership is expected to begin whipping the bill Wednesday — the same day of their special meeting on immigration policy. Several members privately told POLITICO Tuesday afternoon that they had no idea what the bill — which has passed the House Education and the Workforce Committee — contained. The House goes out of session Thursday afternoon this week.

The House is dealing with a number of weighty issues, including immigration reform, the farm bill and appropriations legislation.

Sources in the leadership meeting said the suggestion drew a noticeable reaction from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who co-authored the last federal education bill — 2002’s “No Child Left Behind Act.” Boehner supports the legislation.

“The leader wanted to get this done before the August recess, I’m in agreement with that,” Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.) said. He added, “The speaker was a little bit — had earlier expressed some concern that perhaps people didn’t know enough about it and we had members who don’t want any federal role in education. I think most of my colleagues now, perhaps all of them, understand this is a pretty big step in removing the federal footprint and restoring local control.”

This House Republican Conference expects a lot of briefings from leadership before it votes on any bill. McCarthy has held numerous meetings on the farm bill, immigration policy and tax reform to prepare Republicans for those topics.

But the GOP leadership has also had some defeats on the House floor, including a bill championed by Cantor that would’ve reconfigured money in Obama’s health care program.

Boehner and former President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” expired in 2007, and members have been eying a rewrite of the bill since then. The push for fresh education policy jives with Cantor’s efforts to refocus the Republican party away from being solely defined by fiscal issues. The move by the Virginia Republican has been dubbed by GOP lawmakers and pundits as a re-branding, a term Cantor’s team takes umbrage with.

Kline acknowledged that bill is likely to get very limited — if any — Democratic support and that Republicans need to come up with 218 votes on their own. Kline, a close Boehner ally, said he believes that will happen.

“This is not the farm bill,” Kline insisted. Opposition to the agriculture legislation from conservative Republicans, coupled with little backing from Democrats, led to an embarrassing defeat for Boehner and his top lieutenants for the farm bill on the House floor.

In response to Cantor’s desires for a quick vote, McCarthy’s office hastily scheduled a “special briefing” for House members with Kline for Tuesday afternoon.

“This is more or less the same bill they offered before,” complained Rep. George Miller (Calif.), top Democrat on the Education and Workforce Committee. “It just has no real support in the education community, the business community or civil right community.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, joined with a number of other groups saying that “the legislation falls short of the lessons learned and the need to ensure all students, especially those most in need, are college and career ready.”

“The speculation is that Mr. Cantor thinks this is important, as bad as the bill is,” Miller added.

Senate Democrats have put together their own education bill, and the House GOP package is likely to go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled chamber.

Doug Heye, Cantor’s deputy chief of staff, said in an email that “The decision to move forward with the bill was made with the full involvement of all leadership offices. The bill has not been scheduled for the floor at this time.”

Erica Elliott, a spokesman for McCarthy, said “The Education and Workforce Committee has done consistently excellent work on this legislation for weeks, both in committee and in their communications promotion of the bill. Additionally, the leader has mentioned this agenda item at Conference for several weeks. Members have been aware of the legislation for some time.”

Under the Republican legislation, authored by Kline and Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), schools would not have to meet federal performance goals, a major change from current law. It also consolidates dozens of federal programs under one title designed to aid poor and disadvantaged students.

In a statement on the bill, Kline said the goal is to “reduce the federal footprint” in U.S. education policy and return that power to states and local communities. Kline also notes that the Obama administration has already provided waivers to dozens of states and the District of Columbia for failing to meet performance standards laid out in No Child Left Behind.